


Another name for love

by midnightflame



Series: As Human as We Are [5]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Coffee date, Domestic Fluff, Domestic talk, Fox's wedding, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Kissing, Kissing in the Rain, M/M, sunshowers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-24
Updated: 2017-06-24
Packaged: 2018-11-18 08:17:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11287317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightflame/pseuds/midnightflame
Summary: “Sometimes. . .” Shiro starts to laugh again, and it sounds like rain breaking over drought-dead land. “. . .sometimes, I think you’ve been put here to remind me to live, Keith. You’re an impossibility in my world."Where Shiro and Keith talk about the future and find themselves caught in a bit of unexpected rain.





	Another name for love

**Author's Note:**

> So, this came as a bit of a request from @synnesai after talk of sunshowers, also known as a fox's wedding, and really it's a bit of a short and somewhat self-indulgent piece even in that. I hope you all enjoy it, and yes, this is a little late, but happy "Shiro loves you, baby" day!

“I don’t really like the layout of that one.”

“Too many walls?”

“Too many walls.”

“Then. . .” Shiro flicks his finger across the screen and pulls another tab open. “How about this one?”

Keith eyes the phone carefully, watching as the photos slide across its screen with a meandering sort of slow that allows the viewer to ascertain the full charm of each room. Even at a first glance, he can already see the potential, though he’s not about to go calling it charming just yet. Instead, he tips his mug, that classic off-white color that every coffee shop seems to keep in stock (which he imagines is for the same reason propelling those photos across the screen at a drunkard’s _I’m perfectly sober_ amble), and uses his wooden stirrer to wipe clean the remnants of his cappuccino’s foam. The entire act of it has Shiro smiling at him, and Keith pauses with an eyebrow raised and tongue licking clean the last bits of cinnamon-dappled froth. 

He knows that look, and it has a blush threatening his cheeks within seconds.

“What?” he mutters, casting his gaze back down to the phone.

“Nothing.”

Shiro says it with laughter infusing the word, the sound as warm and comforting as the scarf around Keith's neck. It’s a deep crimson, no frills or fuss about it, chosen by Shiro two months ago when Keith had insisted he didn’t need one. All because it had decided to snow in the middle of their lunch excursion; the flakes had come down bigger than their fingertips but hadn’t stayed long. Keith had managed to talk Shiro out of a pair of gloves, but only by convincing him that Shiro's hand was far better at protecting his. That and the fact that spring was just around the corner. 

The weather remains a fickle thing in this city, however. Keith had left the apartment this morning to fog and chill, but as he looks out the cafe window, he sees nothing but sun and people shedding coats like the newly repentant their sins. Pulling his gaze from a pool of sunlight on the sidewalk, Keith returns his attention to the phone. Shiro is waiting, patient as always.

“There are dark wood floors throughout the two levels.”

“I’m fine with that.”

Shiro leans over and slides through several of the images before stopping on one. “The kitchen has stainless steel appliances. The ceilings are about ten foot and the entire first floor. . .it’s open.”

With a brush back of his bangs, Keith leans down to study the screen better. It’s all as Shiro describes. Every inch of it is remarkably close to the things they had discussed last week when Keith had passed over several other floor plans because none of them fit just quite right. This one, however, is coming close. 

At least about as close as it could to what they were leaving.

“We can convert the bath so it has a rain shower since I know we liked that,” Shiro continues. He coughs lightly after that, the sound a quiet echo over the table.

Keith glances up then, just as the red starts to suffuse across Shiro’s cheeks, and he thinks that dawn has never looked as brilliant as it does when it comes with Memory’s resurfacing. He remembers that night, that hotel. . .remembers Shiro promising him they would have one just like it one day. There’s nothing to stop the smile from taking over his lips.

“We’ll convert it,” he answers, gaze flicking to catch Shiro’s, a brief flash of fire in his eyes before he turns to look down at the phone. The images have resumed their languid scrolling once more. “But the baby blue in that one bedroom has to go.”

Shiro only replies after he’s downed another third of his coffee. His taste for the beverage still runs as dark as midnight’s deepest hour, just as bitter. It’s something that hasn’t changed since Shiro walked back into Keith’s life at the age of eighteen. 

“What would you have instead?”

“Grey.”

Silence claims Shiro once again, only this time it’s surprise that Keith finds striking his gaze bright and not desire. It still looks just as good on Shiro.

Keith shrugs, the smile still teasing the corner of his mouth. “I find the color soothing. And isn’t it one of those neutrals Allura kept talking about? It goes with pretty much anything. . .”

“Anything, huh?”

“Anything.”

“Including someone who still hasn’t given me a yes or a no on the place?”

“I’d say it goes particularly well with a man like that.”

“There’s a small fire pit out back.”

Keith bites down on his stirrer, looking Shiro directly in the eye with one eyebrow arched. “You could have just opened with that.”

Laughter warms up Shiro’s voice once more. “I need you to like the rest of the place too.”

“I like it.”

Grey eyes gaze into his, and for a moment, Keith thinks he can see a universe unfolding within them. Grey is black that’s been touched by light. It’s the color that unfurls when darkness is awakening. When Shiro looks at him in this moment, Keith knows they are standing at the start of something bigger than he - this single entity upon a planet crowded and consuming - has ever been. 

When Shiro looks at him, Keith knows forever exists. 

He chews around the end of his stirrer, tasting less of the sweet cinnamon that had infused it from his drink and more of the woody earthiness from which it had been derived. He pulls it from his mouth and discards it in his cup. 

“You’re sure you want to sell it?”

Shiro breaks away from him, gazing dropping to the coffee sitting dark within its too-white confines. “We’re taking the piano. I have you. . .I don’t need anything else.”

A smile pulses briefly over Shiro’s lips, strained in the way that puts an ache in Keith’s heart. It’s the lack of honesty in that gesture that does it.

“The paperwork is finished. The house is officially mine to do with as I want,” Shiro follows up, coffee cup in hand. He’s still staring down at it though, with brow furrowed and that smile that wants to unveil itself for the troubled line it really is. 

“Your dad. . .he was okay with it?” Keith asks, quiet but with a certainty that draws a firm nod from Shiro. 

“Seems to be.”

Keith rolls the idea around in his head, noting the way Shiro’s expression seemed to lighten momentarily with that affirmation. A brief parting in the clouds before the sky is swallowed once more. “And your mom?”

“I don’t think she’s forgiven me for the lack of grandchildren yet.” Shiro laughs as soon as the words are out, but just like his smile, there’s nothing genuine about it. It’s like trying to paint over black with a color too dull to bear its weight. No matter how many coats you lay over it, the underlying grief always shines through.

Keith finds the world has gone still around him. Not because of sadness, nor because he hates that look on Shiro. It’s not courageous. This isn’t pressing through a snowstorm just to find some place to stave off dying. The sound drowns out around him because in one moment, Keith realizes that faith can still lack even when you have everything you’ve ever wanted within your grasp.

“We can still have kids, Takashi,” Keith whispers.

Or maybe he shouted it because Shiro is staring at him wide-eyed. A man suddenly, vigorously renewed. There had been fire and iron in those words, for if Shiro wouldn’t pick up the sword, then Keith would forge one for him. He feels like Shiro is staring at it now, as though Keith had laid that very weapon on the table before him, as if Keith had given him the rights to a life he didn’t think he could claim. 

_Just lay down your signature._

But Keith didn’t need a soul for this life in exchange. 

“Sometimes. . .” Shiro starts to laugh again, and it sounds like rain breaking over drought-dead land. “. . .sometimes, I think you’ve been put here to remind me to live, Keith. You’re an impossibility in my world.”

* * *

Keith still doesn't understand how a morning can start with you wearing a jacket and scarf and by afternoon have you cursing both articles. He’s divested himself of each, the jacket draped over his messenger bag and the scarf tucked away neatly inside of it, only to find himself lamenting their loss minutes later. If only for the cover they would have provided.

Instead, he’s standing here, drenched to his very core while the sun continues to shine down brilliantly all around him. They’re still seven blocks away from where Shiro had parked the car, and the whole idea of racing against the rain seemed entirely pointless. It won’t make him any drier. 

Jupiter must have downed a fifth of vodka upon waking and said to hell with the weather for the day.

Several feet in front of him, Shiro is waiting, grinning like a man set free upon the world. His hair is plastered to his head, bangs almost lost against his forehead, and the dark navy dress shirt has painted itself to every inch of his torso, looking like spilled ink still careful to sit within the designated lines of his body. The dark grey of his slacks is quickly following suit. He’s looking like a storm all of his own, and something in Keith finds it positively electric.

“Shiro, it’s not supposed to rain when it’s pouring down sunshine.”

Laughter again, loud enough to call itself thunder. It puts a shiver under Keith’s skin, sending armies of goosebumps down from his shoulders until his fingers twitch with anticipation. Shiro is moving back towards him, ready, perhaps, to collect what is his. 

“Back in Japan. . .” Shiro starts, reaching out to run a thumb across Keith’s cheek, “. . .they call this a fox’s wedding.”

There’s something almost otherworldly in Shiro’s gaze as he speaks, the grey of his eyes mist-heavy, promising a world unlike anything Keith could ever imagine. It tugs at his soul and makes his heart stumble over every other beat. But that’s the thing about love - it makes the irrational rational, sparks magic in the world. It makes you believe that stars truly don’t just burn then burn down, but spin out worlds of their own, heavy and bright with all too human wishes.

The thing about love is that it flashes across the heart, throwing light over its world, and the darkness never looks quite the same after.

Shiro is impossibly close, and there is something that says there is madness in the way they are now standing in an emptied alley, letting the rain soak them through. But all Keith sees is the way Shiro’s mouth curves with a smile unfettered, the joy dancing like firelight in his eyes. All he feels is the way fingers glide across his water-slick skin and seek shelter underneath his chin. 

When Shiro tips his head up, Keith blinks against the rain and sun. 

“Why is that?” he murmurs.

The smile blossoms into fullness over Shiro’s lips. He dips his head, laughing too softly to be heard clearly over the fall of rain. Even so, Keith recognizes the sound, and it sends another shiver spiraling down his spine. 

“For many reasons. . .”

“One then.”

“Because,” Shiro replies, pausing only to lick the water from his lips. “Because it’s a beautiful phenomenon, not unlike a fox’s wedding. But humans aren’t meant to spy upon such a thing, so the rain comes down hard. . .and the foxes marry under its cover.”

Keith hears his heart thundering louder with every word Shiro speaks, the last of them brushed against his lips until he’s certain he can taste the mystery of it all. Clean and just a little bit sweet. It takes only a second more for Keith to fall, then he’s kissing Shiro. There’s the bitter edge of too-black coffee, the slight bite of cinnamon, and Keith thinks that yes, it tastes a lot like them. 

Mystery of the world and all.

"I love you. You know that?"

Keith feels his smile curving right up against Shiro's. A perfect fit. "How could I not?"


End file.
